A small Mumbai shop that changed hands during an election campaign in the 1950s is finally set to return to its original tenant’s family, after the Bombay High Court ruled that the tenancy was never legally surrendered.
The dispute revolved around a 250-square-foot shop located at Godavari Bhuvan on LJ Road, Mumbai. The premises had been leased in 1944 to the father of the present petitioners for a monthly rent of ₹30.
In 1956, the then landlord, T.R. Naravane, requested temporary use of the shop as an election office during an Assembly campaign. A letter issued on December 19 that year recorded an understanding between the parties: the landlord could use the premises for three to four months, and the shop would be returned whenever the tenant asked for it, provided 48 hours’ notice was given.
As part of the arrangement, the tenant was allowed to use a room in a nearby residential building, Shivneri, for storing goods and accommodating a servant. What was meant to be a temporary arrangement, however, stretched into decades as the shop was never handed back.
The tenant eventually approached the courts seeking restoration of possession. A Small Causes Court ruled in his favour in 1998. That victory was short-lived, as an appellate bench overturned the decision in 2001, accepting the landlord’s contention that the tenancy had been surrendered.
The matter then reached the Bombay High Court, where interim protection was granted to prevent the creation of third-party rights over the property. The litigation remained pending for nearly a quarter of a century before a final decision arrived.
Delivering judgment on June 8, Justice Rajesh S. Patil restored the 1998 trial court decree and directed the landlords to hand over the premises within eight weeks.
The Court found no documentary evidence supporting the claim that the tenant had voluntarily surrendered the tenancy. On the contrary, rent receipts continued to be issued even after the shop was taken over for election purposes, a circumstance that weighed heavily against the landlord’s case.
Rejecting the theory of surrender, the Court observed that it was implausible that a tenant would willingly exchange a commercially valuable roadside shop for a single room located on the second floor of a residential building off the main road.
The judgment also noted that Naravane, who later served as a Minister in the Maharashtra government, was an educated professional and experienced public figure, making the absence of any formal surrender document particularly significant.
Justice Patil held that a tenant can be deprived of possession only through a lawful eviction order or a valid surrender of tenancy. Since neither had occurred, the tenant’s rights continued to subsist.
With that finding, the High Court set aside the appellate ruling and ordered that the shop be restored to the tenant’s family, bringing a dispute that began in the aftermath of a 1956 election campaign to a close nearly seven decades later.
